lun 361 

T49 
I Copy 1 



®s^^ 



lETTER 



TO 



5 HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR MANNING 



ON 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTIOxN 



g 



^Jjd 



1-P 



IN 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 



:^ COLUMBIA, S. C. : 
R. W. GIBBES & CO., STATE PRINTERS. 



1853. 



^EM^ 



^HS^ 




r 



^ 




Wr 



[LP 361 
.T49 
I Copy 1 



LETTER 



TO 



HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR MANNING 



ON 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 



IN 



^' 



, I SOUTH CAROLINA. 



r 




<^ COLUMBIA, S. C. : 
R. W. GIBBES & CO., STATE PRINTERS. 

1S53. 



Jfc^< 



U^> .A 






k 



LETTER TO GOV. MANNING. 



South Carolina College, 

November, 1853, 
To His Excellency Governor Planning : 

I ask the favour of presenting to your Excellency a few reflections upon 
the subject of Public Instruction in South Carolina. As I feel that I am 
addressing one whose interest and zeal in the prosperity of letters will 
induce him to weigh with candour, to estimate with chai'ity, and even to 
invest with disproportionate value, the crudest hints which spring from the 
desire to increase the educational facilities of the State, I shall dismiss all 
apprehensions of being suspected of an officious obtrusion upon your notice. 
You are the man, above all others, to whom the head of this Institution 
should look with confidence, to give fresh impulse to the genei'al cause of 
education ; and you will excuse me for saying, that if the suggestions which 
shall fall from me, or the maturer recommendations which shall come from 
yourself, shall terminate auspiciously to the wishes of us both, there will be 
furnished a beautiful instance of Providential retribution, in connecting the 
name of the first conspicuous benefactor of the South Carolina College with 
the establishment of an adequate system of common schools. A proud dis- 
tinction in itself to be the friend and patron of learning, the honour is 
increased in your case, in that it has been pre-eminently your care, in its 
higher and lower culture, to dispense its blessings to the poor. Apart from 
fellowship with God, there cannot be a sweeter satisfaction than that which 
arises from the consciousness of being a father to the fatherless ; and if the 
ends which, I know, are dear to your heart can only be achieved, every 
indigent child in the State, looking upon lyou as its real father, may address 
you in the modest and glowing terms which the genius of Milton has 
canonized, as fit expressions of gratitude for the noblest of all gifts. 



At tibi, chare pater, postquam non requa merenti 
Posse referre datur, nee dona rependere factis, 
Sit memorasse satis, repetitaque munera grato 
Percensere animo, fidseque reponere menti. 

I am not insensible to the dangers and difficulties which attend the dis- 
cussion of this subject. It is so seductive to the fancy that the temptation 
is almost irresistible to indulge in schemes and visionary projects. In the 
effort to realize the conception of a perfect education, we are apt to forget 
that there is no such thing as absolute perfection in the matter, that all 
excellence is relative, and that the highest recommendation of any plan is 
that it is at once practicable and adjusted to the wants and condition of 
those for whom it is provided. A system of public instruction, like the form 
of government, must spring from the manners, maxims, habits and associa- 
tions of the people. It must penetrate their character, constitute an 
element of their national existence, be a portion of themselves, if it would 
not be suspected as an alien, or distrusted as a spy. The success of the 
Prussian scheme is ascribed by Cousin to the circumstance, that it existed 
in the manners and customs of the country before it was enacted into law. 
It was not a foreign graft, but the natural offshoot of popular opinion and 
practice. It is an easy thing to construct a theoiy, when nothing is to be 
done but to trace the coherences and dependencies of thought ; but it is not 
so easy to make thought correspond to reality, or to devise a plan which 
shall overlook none of the difficulties and obstructions in the way of suc- 
cessful application. In the suggestions which I have to offer, I shall en- 
deavour to keep steadily in view the real wants of the citizens of this 
Commonwealth, and avoiding all crotchets and metaphysical abstractions, 
shall aim exclusively at what experience, or the nature of the case, demon- 
strates to be practicable. I have no new principles to ventilate, but I shall 
think myself happy if I can succeed in setting in a clearer light, or vin- 
dicating from prejudice and misconstruction, the principles which have 
already been embodied in our laws. It is, perhaps, not generally known 
that the legislation of South Carolina contemplates a scheme of public 
instinaction as perfect in its conception of the end, as it is defective in its 
provision of the means. The order, too, in which the attention of the Legis- 
lature has been turned to the various branches of the subject, though not 
the most popular or the most obvious, is precisely the order of their relative 
importance. It began where it ought to have begun, but unfortunately 
stopped where it ought not to have stopped. To defend what it has already 
done and stimulate it to repentance for what it has not done, is the principal 
motive of this communication. 

Permit me, in pursuance of this design, to direct the attention 
of your Excellency to the nature, operation and defects of the system 



among us. This system consists of the South Carolina College, estah- 
lished in 1801, of the Free Schools, established in 1811, and of the 
Arsenal and Citadel Academies, which have crept into existence by the 
connivance, without any statute, of the Legislature, defining their end and 
aim. This series of institutions is evidently adjusted without, perhaps, any 
conscious purpose of doing so, to the three-fold division of education, in so 
far as it depends upon instruction, into liberal, elementary and professional. 
The College is to furnish the means of liberal, the Free Schools of elemen- 
tary, and the Arsenal and Citadel Academies of that department of 
professional education which looks to the arts of practical life, especially 
those of the soldier. For the liberal or learned professions, those of law, 
physic and divinity, no provision has been made. The College undertakes 
to give the same kind of instruction which is given by the Faculty of Arts 
and Philosophy in the Universities of Europe. Our Military Academies, 
with a slight change in their organization, might be converted into scientific 
schools ; and free schools are, or were designed to be, substantially the same 
as the elementary and grammar schools of England. The scheme, as here 
developed, though far from fulfilling the logical requirements of a complete 
system of public instruction, is amply sulficient, if adequately carried out, 
to meet the real wants of our people. The kind and degree of education, 
for which there is any serious or extensive demand, is what is provided for. 
To make the system logically complete, there would have to be a succession 
of institutions, individually perfect, and yet harmoniously cooperating to a 
general result, which, taking the man at the very dawn of his powers, shall 
be able to carry him up to the highest point of their expansion, and fit him 
for any employment in which intelligence and thought are the conditions of 
success. It should siipply the means to every individual in the community 
of becoming trained and prepared for his own peculiar destiny — it should 
overlook no class — it should neglect no pursuit. It may be doubted whether 
a scheme so comprehensive in its plan is desirable — it is quite certain that 
it is not practicable. The Legislatui-e has done wisely in confining its 
arrangements to liberal and elementary education. It has aimed, by a pre- 
liminary discipline, to put the individual in a condition to educate himself 
for the business of his life, except where his calling involves an application 
of scientific knowledge which does not enter into the curricvxlum of general 
instruction. In that case it has made a special provision. I see then no 
improvement that can be made in the general features of our scheme — it is 
as perfect in its conception as the wants and condition of our people will 
justify. All that the Legislature should aim at is the adjustment of the 
details, and the better adaptation of them to the end in view. 

I. The first in the order of establishment, as well as the first in the order 
of importance, is the College. Devoted to the interests of general, in 



contradistinction from professional education, its design is to cultivate the 
mind without reference to any ulterior pursuits. ^'The student is considered 
as an end to himself; his perfection, as a man simply, being the aim of his 
education." The culture of the mind, however, for itself, contributes to 
its perfection as an instrument, so that general education, while it directly 
prepares and qualifies for no special destination, indirectly trains for every 
Tocation in which success is dependent upon intellectual exertion. It has 
taught the mind the use of its powers, and imparted those habits without 
"which its powers would be useless. It makes men, and consequently pro- 
motes every enterprise in which men are to act. 

General education being the design of a College, the fundamental prin- 
ciples of its organization are easily deduced. 

1. The selection of studies must be made, not with reference to 
the comparative importance of "their matter, or the practical value of 
the knowledge, but with reference to their influence in unfolding and 
strengthening the powers of the mind ; as the end is to improve mind, the 
fitness for the end is the prime consideration. ''As knowledge," says Sir 
Wm. Hamilton, * ''(man being now considered as an end to himself,) is only 
valuable as it exercises, and by exercise, develops and invigorates the 
mind ; so a university, in its liberal faculty, should especially prefer those 
objects of study which call forth the strongest and most unexclusive energy 
of thought, and so teach them too, that this energy shall be most fully 
elicited in the student. For speculative knowledge, of whatever kind, is 
only profitable to the student, in his liberal cultivation, inasmuch as it sup- 
plies him with the object and occasion of exerting his faculties ; since pow- 
ers are only developed in proportion as they are exercised ; that is, put 
forth into energy. The mere possession of scientific truths is, for its own 
Bake, valueless ; and education is only education, inasmuch as it at once deter- 
mines and enables the student to educate himself" Hence the introduction 
of studies upon the ground of their practical utility is, pro tanto, subversive 
of the College. It is not its office to make planters, mechanics, lawyers, 
physicians or divines. It has nothing directly to do with the uses of know- 
ledge. Its business is with minds, and it employs science only as an 
instrument for the improvement and perfection of mind. With it the habit 
of sound thinking is more than a thousand thoughts. When, therefore, the 
question is asked, as it often is asked by ignorance and empiricism, what 
is the use of certain departments of the College curriculum, the answer 
should turn, not upon the benefits which, in after life, may be reaped from 
hese pursuits, but upon their immediate subjective influence upon the 
cultivation of the human faculties. They are selected in preference to 
others, because they better train the mind. It cannot be too earnestly 



* Discussions on Philosophy, &c., p. 677. 



inculcated that knowledge is not the principal end of College instruction, 
but habits. The acquisition of knowledge is the necessary result of those 
exercises which terminate in habits, and the maturity of the habit is meas- 
ured by the degree and accuracy of the knowledge. But still the habits are 
the main thing. 

2. In the next place it is equally important that the whole course of studies 
be rigidly exacted of every student. Their value as a discipline depends alto- 
gether upon their heing studied, and every college is defective in its arrange- 
ments which fails to secure, as far as legislation can secure it, this indispensable 
condition of success. Whatever may be the case in Europe, it is found 
from experience in this country, that nothing will avail without the authority 
of law. The curriculum must be compulsory, or the majority of students 
will neglect it. All must be subjected to catechetical examinations in the 
lecture room, and all must undergo the regular examinations of their classes, 
as the condition of their residence in College. The moment they are ex- 
empted from the stringency of this rule, all other means lose their power 
upon the mass of pupils. Much may be accomplished by rewards, and by 
stimulating the spirit of competition, and great reliance should be placed 
upon them to secure a high standard of attainment ; but in most men, the 
love of ease is stronger than ambition, and indolence a greater luxury than 
thought. '' For, whilst mental effort is the one condition of all mental im- 
provement, yet this eiFort is at first and for a time painful; positively painful, 
in proportion as it is intense, and comparatively painful, as it abstracts 
from other and positively pleasurable activities. It is painful because its 
energy is imperfect, difficult, forced. But, as the effort is gradually per- 
fected, gradually facilitated, it becomes gradually pleasing ; and when, finally 
perfected, that is, when the power is fully developed, and the effort changed 
into a spontaneity, becomes an exertion absolutely easy, it remains purely, 
intensely and alone unsatiably pleasurable. For pleasure is nothing but the 
concomitant or reflex of the unforced and unimpeded energy of a natural 
faculty or acquired habit; the degree and permanence of pleasure being also 
in proportion to the intensity and purity of the mental energy. The great 
postulate in education is, therefore, to induce the pupil to enter and perse- 
vere in such a course of effort, good in its result and delectable, but primarily 
and in itself irksome." * The argument of necessity helps to reconcile him 
to the weariness of study — what he feels that he must do he will endeavor to 
do with grace, and as there is no alternative, he will be more open to the gene- 
rous and manly influences which the rewards and distinctions of the College 
are suited to exert. There are always causes at work, apart from the repul- 
siveness of intellectual labour, to seduce the student from his books; and 

* Hamilton's Discussions, p. 676. 



8 

before his hcabits are yet formed and the love of study grounded into his 
nature, it is of the utmost consequence to keep these causes in check. No 
other motives will be sufficient without the compulsion of law. Co-operating 
with this, there are many others which, if they do not positively sweeten his 
toil, may help to mitigate the agony of thought. 

I have insisted upon this point, because it is the point in regard to which 
the most dangerous innovations are to be apprehended. Two changes have 
at different times been proposed, one of which would be absolutely fatal, 
and the other seriously detrimental, to the interests of the College as a 
place of liberal education. The first is to convert it into a collection of 
independent schools, each of which shall be complete in itself, it being left 
to the choice of the student what schools he shall enter. The other is to 
remit the obligation of the whole course in reference to a certain class of 
students, and allow them to pursue such parts of it as they may choose. 
In relation to the first, young men are incompetent to pronounce beforehand 
what studies are subjectively the most beneficial. It requires those who 
have experienced the disciplinary power of different studies to determine 
their relative value. Only a scholar can say what will make a scholar. The 
experience of the world has settled down upon a certain class and order of 
studies, and the verdict of ages and generations is not to be set aside by the 
eaprices, whims or prejudices of those who are not even able to comprehend 
the main end of education. In the next place, if our undergraduates were 
competent to form a judgment, their natural love of indolence and ease 
would, in the majority of cases, lead them to exclude those very studies 
which are the most improving, precisely because they are so ; that is, be- 
cause, in themselves and in the method of teaching them, they involve a 
degree and intensity of mental exercise, which is positively painful. Self- 
denial is not natural to man ; and he manifests but little acquaintance with 
human nature, who presumes as a matter of course, that the will will 
choose what the judgment commends. Video meliora proboque dete- 
riora sequor, is more preeminently true of the young than the old. They 
are the creatures of impulse. Permit them to select their own studies, and 
the majority will select those that are thought to be the easiest. The 
principle of choice will be the very opposite of that upon which the efficiency 
of a study depends. Experience is decisive on this point. What creates 
more trouble in the interior management of our Colleges than the constant 
desire of the pupils to evade recitation ? And is it not universally found 
that the Departments which are the most popular, are those which least task 
the energies of the student ? I do not say that the Professors who fill these 
Departments arc themselves most respected. That will depend upon their 
merits, and in matters of this sort the judgments of the young are gene- 
rally right. But easy exercises are preferred, simply because they do not 



9 

tax the mind. The practical problem with the mass of students is — the 
least work and easiest done. Is it easy, is it short, these are the questions 
which are first asked about a lesson. I must, therefore, consider any 
attempt to relax the compulsory featm-e of the College course, as an infalli- 
ble expedient for degrading education. The College will cease to train. 
It may be a place for literary triflers, but a place for students it cannot be. 
There is much in a name, and the change here condemned is delusively 
sought to be insinuated under the pretext of converting the College into a 
University. This latter title sounds more imposingly, and carries the 
appearance of greater dignity. But the truth is, there is hardly a more 
equivocal word in the language. " In its proper and original meaning," as 
Sir Wm. Hamilton* has satisfactorily shown, " it denotes simply the loliole 
members of a body, (generally incorporated body,) of persons teaching and 
learning one or more departments of knowledge." In its ordinary accep- 
tation in this country it is either synonymous with College, as an institution of 
higher education — and in this sense we are already a University — or it 
denotes a College with Professional schools attached. It is clear, however, 
that the introduction of the Faculties of Law, Medicine and Theology, 
necessitates no change in the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts. It is not 
necessary to make general education voluntary, in order to provide for 
professional instruction. There is consequently nothing in the name, or in 
the nature of the case, which demands a fundamental change in the system, 
in order that the South Carolina College may become the South Carolina 
University. For myself, I am content with our present title, and if it 

'•^ Discussions, p. 479. To the quotation in the text may be added the followino- 
passage from the same page: "The y^ord universifas, in the common languao-e of 
Rome, is equally applicable to persons and to things. In the technical language of 
the civil law, it was, in like manner, applied to both. In the former signification, 
(convertible with collegium,) it denoted a plurality of persons associated for a con- 
tinued purpose, and may be inadequately rendered by society, company, corporation; 
in the latter, it denoted a certain totality of individual things, constituted either by 
the mutual relation to a certain common end, {universitas facti,) or by a mere le^al 
fiction, {universitas juris.) In the language of the middle ages, it was applied either 
loosely to any understood class of persons, or strictly (in the acceptation of the 
Roman law) to a public incorporation, more especially (as equivalent with communitas) 
to the members of a municipality, or to the members of a "general study." In this 
last application it was, however, not uniformly of the same amount; and its meaning 
was, for a considerable period, determined by the words with which it was connected. 
Thus it was used to denote either (and this was its more usual meaning) the whole 
body of teachers and learners, or the whole body of learners, or the whole body of 
teachers and learners, divided eitlier by faculty or by country, or by both together. 
But no one instance can, we are confident, be adduced, in which (we mean until its 
original and proper signification had been forgotten) it is employed for a school 
teaching, or privileged to teach, and grant degrees, in all the faculties." 



10 

promises less, I am sure that it will accomplisb. more, than the new title with 
the corresponding change. As to the expediency of adding the Faculties 
of Law and Medicine (Theology is out of the question) to the present 
organization, I have only to say, that it will multiply and complicate the 
difficulties of the internal management of the Institution, without securing 
any increased proficiency in these departments of knowledge ; that is, if 
there is to be any real connection between the Faculty of Arts and those 
of Law and Medicine. I dread the experiment. I think it better that 
the Professions should be left to proA'ide for themselves, than that a multi- 
tude of inexperienced young men should be brought together, many of 
whom are comparatively free from the restraints of discipline, and yet have 
an easy and ready access to those who are more under law. The very liberty 
of the resident would be a temptation to the under-graduates. I have no 
objection, however, to the founding of Professional Schools by the State. 
All that I am anxious for is that they should not be so connected with the 
College as that the members of all the schools should reside together. To 
be under a common government is impossible, to be under a different 
government would breed interminable confusion and disorder. That 
sort of nominal connection which requires that all medical and law degrees 
should be conferred by the authorities of the College, and which is perfectly 
consistent with the law and medical schools being established in a different 
place, would, of course, be harmless. But this difficulty might arise; the 
College would be unwilling to confer ant/ degree without a liberal educa- 
tion — it could not, without abjuring the very principles of its existence, 
grant its honours upon mere professional attainment. 

With respect to the other change, that of allowing students, under certain 
circumstances, to pursue a partial course, it is evidently contradictory to the 
fundamental end of the College. These students are not seeking knowledge 
for the sake of discipline, but with reference to ulterior uses. They come 
not to be trained to think, but to learn to act in definite departments of 
exertion. It is jjrofessional, not liheval education which they want. The 
want I acknowledge ought to be gratified — it is a demand which should be 
supplied. But the College is not the place to do it. That was founded for 
other purposes, and it is simply preposterous to abrogate its constitution out 
of concessions to a necessity, because the necessity happens to be real. 
What, therefore, ought to be done is not to change the nature of the College, 
but, leaving that untouched to do its own work, to organize schools with 
special reference to this class of wants. We have the elements of such an 
organization in the Arsenal and Citadel Academies. Let these be con- 
verted into seminaries of special education — which will only be an extension 
of their present plan — and they will form that intermediate class of schools 
betwixt the elementary and the College, which the circumstances of every 



11 

civilized community, in proportion to the complication of its interests; 
demand. 

These changes in the College have been favoured on the ground that 
they will increase its numbers. But the success of the College is not to be 
estimated by the numbers in attendance, but by the numbers educated. It 
should never include more than those who are seeking a liberal education, 
and if it includes all of these, whether they be fifty or two hundred, it is 
doing the whole of its appropriate work. No doubt, by the changes in ques- 
tion, our catalogue might be increased two or three fold, but we should not 
educate a single individual more than we educate now. Numbers in them- 
selves are nothing, unless they "represent those who are really devoted 
to the business of the place. What real advantage would it be to have four 
or five hundred pupils matriculated here, if some remained only a few 
months, others remained longer in idleness, and out of the whole number, 
only four or five applied for a degree. That four or five would be the true 
criterion of success. The real question, I insist, is how many graduate. 
That is the decisive point. As long as we receive the whole number of 
young men in the State, who are to be liberally educated, whether that 
number be greater or smaller, we are doing all that we were appointed to do, 
or that we can be legitimately expected to do; and a decline in numbers is 
not a necessary proof of the declension of the College, it may be only a proof 
that the demand is ceasing for higher instruction. The work, however, to 
be done loses none of its importance in consequence of the failure to appre- 
ciate its value; and the remedy is not to give it up and yield to empirical , 
innovations, but to persevere, in faith and patience, relying upon time as the 
great teacher of wisdom. 

3. Another cardinal principle in the organization of the College is the 
independence of its teachers. They should be raised above all temptation 
of catering for popularity, of degrading the standard of education for the 
sake of the loaves and fishes. They should be prepared to officiate as 
Priests in the temple of learning, in pure vestments, and with hands unstained 
with a bribe. It has been suggested that if the stipends of the Professors 
were made dependent upon the number of pupils, the strong motive of per- 
onal interest, added to the higher incentives which they are expected to 
feel, would increase their efficiency, by stimulating their zeal and activity. 
They would be anxious to achieve a reputation for the College which would en- 
able it to command students. This argument proceeds upon a hypothesis which, 
I am ashamed to say, my own experience pronounces to be false. In the 
state of things in this country there is a constant conflict between the gov- 
ernment of the College and the candidates for its privileges, the one 
attempting to raise, and the other to lower, the standard of admission, and 
every eflbrt of the Faculty in the right direction is met with a determined 



12 

resistance. It is not to be presumed that young men, at the age of 
our undergraduates generally, should have any steady and precise notions 
of the nature of education. A College is a College, and when they are de- 
bating the question, whither they shall go, the most important items in the 
calculation are, not the efficiency, but the cheapness of the place, and the 
shortness of the time within which a degree may be obtained. The conse- 
quence is that no College can resist the current, unless its teachers are 
independent. In that case they may stand their ground-^and though they 
can never hope to equal feebler institutions in numbers, they will still 
accomplish a great work, and confer a lasting benefit on society. The South 
Carolina College has raised her standard. She has proclaimed her purpose 
to be, TO EDUCATE WELL, and I should deplore any measure that might 
remotely tend to drive her from this position. The true security for the ability 
of the professorial corps is not to be sought in starving them, or in making 
them scramble for a livelihood, but in the competency, zeal and integrity of the 
body that appoints them, and in the strict responsibility to which they are 
held. An impartial Board of overseers, to elect faithful and turn out incom- 
petent men, a Board that has the nerve to do its duty, will be a stronger check 
upon indolence and inefficiency, than an empty larder. The motive of 
necessity may lead them to degrade instruction to increase their fees ; the 
motive of responsibility to a body that can appreciate their labours, will 
always operate in the right direction. 

" Let this ground, therefore," says Bacon, * " be laid that all works are 
overcome by amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction, and by the 
conjunction of labours. The first multiplieth endeavour, the second pre- 
venteth error, and the third supplieth the frailty of man. But the principal 
of these is direction." So far as the undergraduates are concerned I think 
that all these conditions of success are measurably fulfilled in the present 
arrangements of the College ; as much so as the general state of education 
will allow. No changes in this respect are desirable. But the interests of 
higher education demand something more than that culture " in passage," 
as Bacon expresses it, which is all that is contemplated in provisions for un- 
dergraduates. Our work stops with the degree. We have no foundations 
upon which scholars may be placed, 'lending to quietness and privateness of 
life, and discharge of cares and troubles." We are wanting in facilities for 
"conjunctions" of learned men; and consequently the only persons whose 
business it is to keep pace with the higher intelligence of the age, are the 
few professors who are employed in the work of instruction. With only 
such means we must fall behind in the march of improvement. There must 
be more competition, more leisure, more freedom from distracting cares. 

* Bacon's Works, vol. 2nd. p. 90. Montagu's Edition. 



13 

'^This I take to be/' says the great writer from whom I love to quote * "a 
great cause that hath hindered the profession of learning, because these fun- 
damental knowledges have been studied but in passage. For if you will 
have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not any thing you 
can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting new 
mould about the roots, that must work it." 

I do not look to the Legislature to supply this deficiency. Other demands 
more immediate and urgent must first be met, and to meet them adequately 
will make a heavy draft upon its resources. But I do look to private lih- 
eralify. Many of the foundations in Oxford and Cambridge have arisen 

cm this source. The Northern Colleges are indebted for the largest part 
of their funds to the same cause. Why should not some portion of the 
Southern wealth take the same direction ? Are we wanting in the love of 
knowledge, in the spirit of charity, and in zeal for the honour and prosperity 
of the State ? I cannot account for the remissness and apathy of our rich 
planters and merchants, and professional men, in any other way, than that 
this form of generosity has not been the habit of the country. I had 
hoped that your example, and the example of Col. Hampton would have 
given an impetus to this matter, and I shall not despair until I see the result 
of the festival which is proposed to be celebrated in honour of the 50th anni- 
versary of the College. A body of learned men, devoted to the pursuit of 
fundamental knowledges, is what more than every thing else is now needed, 
to complete our system. There is wealth enough in private cofiers, and 
liberality enough in the hearts of our citizens, to supply the want, if public 
interest could only be elicited in the subject. There prevails an impression 
that the annual appropriations of the Legislature are amply sufiicient for all 
the ends of a College — it is forgotten that these appropriations contemplate 
it entirely as a place of teaching, and not the residence of scholars. In this 
latter afepect we are wholly dependent upon private generosity. 

The advantages to the College, and to the State, and to the whole 
country, of such a body of resident scholars cannot be estimated. They 
might, in various ways, assist in the business of discipline and instruction — 
they would furnish a constant supply of materials for new professors — they 
would give tone and impulse to the aspirations and efibrts of the young men 
gathered around them, and difiuse an influence, which, silently and imper- 
ceptibly concurring in the formation of that powerful and mysterious com- 
bination of separate elements called public opinion, would tell upon every 
hamlet in the land. ''For, if men judge that learning should be referred to 
action, they judge well ; but in this they fall into the error described in 
the ancient fable, in which the other parts of the body did suppose the 

* Bacou's Works, vol. 2ud, p. 93. Montagu's Edition. 



14 

stomach had been idle, because it neither performed the office of motion, as 
the limbs do, nor of sense, as the head doth ; but yet, notwithstanding, it is 
the stomach that digesteth and distributeth to all the rest ; so if any man 
think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider 
that all professions are from thence served and supplied."* This homely 
illustration sets the question of utility in its true light, and if I could im- 
press upon the community, as it exists in my own mind, the deep and earn- 
est sense of the importance of this feature in the organization of the Col- 
lege, the lack of means would soon cease to be an impediment in keeping 
pace with the highest culture of the age. It would soon be found that 
wealth has no more tendency to contract the mind in South Carolina, than 
in Massachusetts and New York, and that there are merchant princes in 
Charleston as well as in Boston. "Who will begin the work ? Who shall 
set the first example of a foundation of ten or twenty thousand dollars, 
devoted to the support of genius in reflecting light and glory upon the 
State ? It is devoutly to be hoped that something more substantial than 
echo will answer who. 

But as there are those who admit, in general, the advantages of a high 
standard of liberal education, and the consequent importance of such in- 
stitutions as the College, and yet doubt the wisdom of the policy which 
directly connects them with the State, a more distinct consideration of this 
question will not be out of place here. The grounds of doubt are twofold. 

1. The College, it is said, is for the benefit of the few, and therefore, should 
not be supported by the taxes of the many — what comes from all should 
be for all. What is for a class should be by a class. This is the substance 
of the clamour, by which, ignorance and vulgar ambition, and above all, a 
pretended regard for the rights and interests of the masses, are constantly 
endeavoring to steal away the hearts of the people from what, justly con- 
sidered, is the bulwark of their liberties, and the strongest safeguard of 
their honour and respectability. Hence the cry that the College is an aris- 
tocratic institution ; a resort for the rich, exclusive of the poor. 

The other ground is, that education, in its very nature, belongs to the 
church, or to private enterprise — that it includes elements which lie beyond 
the jurisdiction of the State, and that, therefore, the State has no right to 
interfere with it. These objection?, I think, embody the strength of what- 
ever opposition is expressed or felt to the College as a public foundation. 

In reference to the first, let it be admitted that the number of those who 
participate in the privileges of the College is, and must necessarily be, limi- 
ted. It is, of course, impracticable, even if it were desirable, that every 
young man in the State should receive a liberal education. Some must be 

*Bacon's Works, vol 2, p. 93, Montagu's Edit. 



15 

excluded. Tlie very notion of their being excluded implies that they do 
not share in the immediate advantages of the College. But then the ques 
tion arises, what is the principle of exclusion, so far as the College is con- 
cerned ? If that principle is directly based upon difference in fortune, then 
there is ground of complaint ; otherwise none. Does the College reject any 
because they are poor ; does it admit any because they are rich ? Does it 
recognize any distinction between rich and poor ? Who will venture upon 
such an allegation ? And yet it is only by making wealth the ground of 
admission, and poverty the ground of exclusion, that the College can be 
justly charged with aristocratic tendencies. It is notorious that the only 
question which the College asks, as the qualification for admission to its 
immunities, is in relation to the fitness of the candidates to enter upon its 
pursuits. All who are prepared to comply with its requisitions are wel- 
come to its halls, whether rich or poor. Poverty may, indeed, be a remote 
and accidental cause of exclusion, as it incapacitates for acquiring the fitness 
which the College exacts, and which is absolutely indispensable to the ends it 
has in view. But in these cases, it is not the poverty which the College con- 
siderSjbut the ignorance and want of preparatory training. There are also 
expenses incident to a College course which put it out of the power of those 
who are absolutely without funds to pursue it. A man must be fed and 
clothed and warmed ; and the comforts of life do not usually come without 
money ; and if he cannot afford the necessary expenses himself, and his 
friends will not afford them for him, all that can be said is, that Providence 
has cut him off from a liberal education. He is not in a condition to reap 
the advantages of personal residence within the College walls. But the 
principle of exclusion, so far as the College is concerned, is not a class 
principle, but one which necessarily results from the nature and end of 
its institution. It is founded exclusively for a certain kind and degree of 
education, and it opens its doors to all, without exception, who are prepared 
for its instructions, and can sustain the expenses necessarily incident to a 
residence from home. It shuts its doors upon none, but upon those who 
shut them upon themselves, or against whom Providence has closed them. 
f a free College means a College absolutely without expense, we must wait 
for the realization of such a dream until the manifestation of that state in 
which our bodies shall cease to be flesh and blood, and such homely articles 
as food, raiment and fuel, be no longer needed. But if an institution is 
not, ip)so facto, aristocratic, because the members of it have to pay for their 
victuals and clothes, then the South Carolina College is not an aristocratic 
or class institution. It might not be improper to inquire whether in those 
institutions, whose glory it is to be par eminence institutions for the vulgar, 
it is pretended that the pupils have absolutely nothing to pay. Can a stark 
beggar get through them without help ? If not, poverty and wealth have 



16 

the same remote and indirect influence in determining who shall -participate 
in their privileges, as thej have in the South Carolina College. 

From a somewhat careful inquiry, too, I am inclined to the opinion, that 
none, however poor, ever fail to get through College, who have been ena- 
bled, either by their own exertions or the assistance of others, to prepare 
for College. I am sure the number is very small. Hence of all charges 
that the imagination can conceive, that of educating only the rich is the 
most idle and ridiculous. Most of our students, as a matter of fact, are 
from families in moderate circumstances ; many are absolutely poor, either 
expending their whole living upon their minds, or toiling in vacations to 
acquire the means of defraying their expenses, or sustained by the eleemosy- 
nary foundations of the College, or by the assistance of the College Societies, 
or by private liberality. The public sentiment of the students speaks vo- 
lumes upon this point. If there were anything in the genius or organiza- 
tion of the Institution which distinguished it as the College of the rich, 
there would be a corresponding pride of aristocracy among the young men, 
and the poor would be avoided, insulted or shunned as a profanum vulgus. 
They would be branded by public opinion as men who were out of their place ; 
as upstarts, who were aspiring to the privileges of their betters. This would 
be necessitated as the common feeling by the organic principle of the body. 
But what is the truth ? I have no hesitation in affirming, that if there be a 
place more than any other where the poor are honoured and respected, where 
indigence, if coupled with any degree of merit, is an infallible passport to 
favour, that place is the South Carolina College. It may be pre-eminently 
called the poor man's College in the sense that poverty is no reproach with- 
in its walls — no bar to its highest honours and most tempting rewards, 
either among professors or students. On the contrary, if there is a preju- 
dice at all, it is against the rich ; and from long observation and experience, 
I am prepared to affirm, that no spirit receives a sterner, stronger, more in- 
dignant rebuke within these walls than the pride and vanity of wealth. 
Let any young man presume upon his fortune and undertake to put on airs, 
and the whole College pounces down upon him with as little mercy and as 
much avidity, as the jackdaws in the fable, upon their aspiring fellow, who 
was decked in the peacock's feathers. 

No doubt there are many whose circumstances preclude them from the 
fii'st steps of a liberal education, and who, yet, have the capacity to receive 
it, and who, if educated, might reflect lasting honour upon the State. But, 
unfortunately, from the imperfect and inefficient condition of the free 
schools, these poor children can never be distinguished. One advantage of 
a more adequate scheme of public instruction will be that of bringing in- 
digent merit to the light. For such cases there ought to be the most ample 
provision. " This," in the words of Cousin, " is a sacred duty we owe to 



17 

talent — a duty wliicli must'be fulfilled, even at tlie risk of being sometimes 
mistaken." The State should either endow scholarships, or extemporize 
appropriations to meet the cases of those who, when public schools shall 
have been established, shall be reported as worthy of a liberal education' by 
their earlier teachers. And beyond this, as the same writer observes, it is 
not desirable that it should provide for the higher instruction of the poor. 

So much for the limitation of the immediate benefits of the College. 
They are confined to comparatively a few, simply because it is comparative- 
ly a few that are in a condition to receive them. But then the important 
point is — and it is a point which ought never to be forgotten, though it is 
systematically overlooked by those who are accustomed to decry the College 
— that these benefits are imparted, not for the sake of the few, but for the 
interest of the many — the good of the State at large. Those who are edu- 
cated, are educated not for themselves, but for the advantage of the Com- 
monwealth as a whole. Every scholar is regarded as a blessing — a great 
public benefit — and for the sake of the general influence that he is qualified 
to exert, the State makes provisions for his training. It is because " the 
proper education of youth contributes greatly to the prosperity of society," 
that it '' ought to be an object of legislative attention." The many, there- 
fore, are not taxed for the few, but the few are trained for exalted usefulness 
and extensive good to the many. If the Legislature had in view only the 
interests of those who are educated, and expended its funds in reference to 
their good, considered simply as individuals, there would be just ground of 
complaint; but when it is really aiming at the prosperity of the whole 
community, and uses these individuals as means to an end, there is nothing 
limited or partial in its measures. It is great weakness to suppose that 
nothing can contribute to the general good, the immediate ends of which 
are not realized in the case of every individual. Are light houses con- 
structed only for the safety of the benighted maa-iners who may be actually 
guided by their lamps ? or are they reared for the security of navigation, 
the interests of commerce, and through these, the interests of society at 
large. 

There is no way of evading the force of this argument but by flatly de- 
nying that an educated class is a public good. If there are any among us 
who are prepared to take this ground, and to become open advocates of bar- 
barism, I have nothing to say to them ; but, for the sake of those who may 
be seduced by a sophistry which they cannot disentangle, I ofibr a few re- 
flections. 

In the first place, the educated men, in every community, are the real 
elements of steady and consistent progress. They are generally in advance 
of their generation; light descends from them to their inferiors, and by a grad- 
ual and imperceptible influence emanating from the solitary speculations, it 



18 

may be, of their secret hours, the whole texture of society is mocIifiecT, a 
wider scope is given to its views and a loftier end to its measures. They are 
the men who sustain and carry forward the complicated movements of a re- 
fined civilization — the real authors of the changes which constitute epochs 
in the social elevation of the race. Pitt could not understand, and Fox re- 
fused to read the masterly speculations of Adam Smith upon the Wealth 
of Nations. He was ahead of his age. The truth gradually worked its 
way, however, into the minds of statesmen and legislators, and now, no 
one is held to be fit for any public employment, who is not imbued with the 
principles of Political Economy. The thoughts of a retired thinker, once 
set in motion, if they have truth in them, have a principle of life which 
can never be extinguished — they may, for a season, be repressed and con- 
fined, but they, finally, like disengaged gases, acquire an intensity and pow- 
er which defy all opposition. They spread through society, leavening fii'st 
its leading members, and extending in the shape of results, or maxims, or 
practical conclusions, to every fireside in the land. The solitary scholar 
wields a lever which raises the whole mass of society. It is a high general 
education which shapes the minds and controls the ojiinions of the guiding 
spirits of the age ; it is this which keeps up the general tone of society — it 
is at once conservative and pi'ogressive. 

The conservative tendency requires to be a little more distinctly pointed 
out. The case is this — the universal activity which general intelligence 
imparts to mind, must be prolific in schemes and theories, and these are 
likely to be sound or hurtful, according to the completeness of the induc- 
tions or the narrowness of the views, on which they are founded. A half 
truth, or a truth partially apprehended, always has the effect of a lie. A 
high order of culture, with occasional exceptions, (for profound thinkei-g 
are sometimes eccentric,) is a security against the ill-digested plans and 
visionary projects, which they are peculiarly tempted to originate, whose 
vision is confined to a contracted horizon, and who are deceived, simply 
because they do not perceive the bearings of a principle in all its applica- 
tions. An educated class expands the field of vision, and serves as a check 
to the irregular impulses and the impetuous innovations of minds, equally 
active, but less enlarged. It protects from rashness, from false maxims, 
from partial knowledge. It is a seciirity for public order which can hardly 
be over-estimated — it is the regulator of the great clock of society. Greneral 
intelligence, without high culture to keep it in check, will exemplify the 
maxim of Pope — 

"A little learning is a dangerous thing," 

and will prove a gi-eater curse to the State than absolute ignorance. It is 
not ignorance, but half-knowledge, that is full of whims and crotchets, the 



19 

prey of impulse and fanaticism, and the parent of restless agitation and 
ceaseless change. It is in the constant play of antagonist forces, the action 
and re-action of the higher and lower culture, that the life, health and 
vigour of society consist. General intelligence checks the stagnation of 
ignorance, and a thorough education, the rashness of empiricism. Where 
these prevail there is all the inspiration without the contortions of the 
Sibyl.* 

In the next place it should not be omitted that general education is the 
true source of the elevation of the masses, and of the demand for popular 
instruction. Every educated man is a centre of light, and his example 
and influence create the consciousness of ignorance and the sense of need, 
from which elementary schools have sprung. Defective culture is never 
conscious of itself until it is brought into contact with superior power. 
There may be a conviction of ignorance in reference to special things, and a 
desire of knowledge as the means of accomplishing particular ends. But 
the need of intellectual improvement on its own account never is awakened 
spontaneously. We never lament our inferiority to angels. The reason is, 
we are not brought into contact with them, and are consequently not sensi- 
ble of the disparity that exists. If we had examples before us of angelic 
amplitude of mind, the contrast would force upon us a lively impres- 
sion of the lowness of our intellectual level. If we had never been accus- 
tomed to any other light but that of the stars, we should never have dreamed 
of the sun, nor felt the absence of his rays as any real evil. The positive 
in the order of thought is before the privative. W^e must know the good 
in order to understand the evil; we must be familiar with day to compre- 
hend night and darkness. Hence it is that civilization never has been and 
never can be of spontaneous growth among a people. It has always been 
an inheritance or an importation. If men had been originally created sava- 
ges, they would all have been savages to-day. Those ingenious theories 
which undertake, from principles of human nature, to explain the history 
of man's progress from barbarism |o refinement, are nothing better than 
speculative romances. They are contradicted by experience, as well as by 
the laws of the human mind. Philosophy coincides with the Bible, man 
was created in the image of God, and the rudeness and coarseness of un- 
civilized communities are states of degradation into which he has aposta. 
tized and sunk, and not his primitive and original condition. Civilization 
has migrated from one centre to another, has found its way among barba- 
rians and savages, and restored them to something of their forfeited inheri- 
tance, but, in every such instance, it has been introduced from without, it 



* See some excellent remarks ou this subject in President Walker's Inaugxjral 
Discoiu"se. 



20 

has never developed itself from within. Where all is darkness, whence is 
the light to spring ? What planet is the source of the rays that shine on 
it ? Hence it is knowledge which creates the demand for knowledge — 
which causes ignorance to be felt as an evil, and hence it is the education, 
in the first instance, of the few, which has awakened the strong desire for 
the illumination of the many. Let knowledge, however, become stagnant — 
let no provision be made for the constant activity of the highest order of 
minds in the highest spheres of speculation, and the torpor would be com- 
municated downwards, until the whole community was benumbed. The 
thinkers in the most abstract departments of speculation keep the whole of 
society in motion, and upon its motion depends its progress. Scholars, 
therefore, are the real benefactors of the people — and he does more for 
popular education who founds a University, than he who institutes a com- 
plete and adequate machinery of common schools. The reason is obvious — 
the most potent element of public opinion is wanting where only a low form 
of culture obtains — the common schools having no example of any thing 
higher before them, would soon degenerate and impart only a mechanical 
culture — if they did not, which I am inclined to think would be the case, 
from their want of life, if they did not permit the people to relapse into 
barbarism. Colleges, on the other hand, will create the demand for lower 
culture, and private enterprise under the stimulus imparted would not be 
backward in providing for it. The college will diifuse the education of 
principles, of maxims, a tone of thinking and feeling which are of the last 
importance, without the schools — the schools could never do it without the 
college. If we must dispense with one or the other, I have no hesitatfon in 
saying, that on the score of public good alone, it were wiser to dispense with 
the schools. X One sun is better than a thousand stars. There never was, 
therefore, a more grievous error than that the college is in antagonism to 
the interests of the people. Precisely the opposite is the truth — and be- 
cause it is preeminently a public good, operating directly or indirectly to 
the benefit of every citizen in the Stai^, the Legislature was originally justi- 
fied in founding, and in still sustaining, this noble institution. It has made 
South Carolina what she is — it has made her people what they are — and 
from her mountains to her seaboard there is not a nook or corner of the 
State that has not shared in its healthful influence. The very cries which 
are coming up from all quarters for the direct instruction of the people, 
cries which none should think of resisting, are only echoes from the college 
walls. We should never have heard of them, if the state of things had 
continued among us, which existed when the college was founded. The 
low country would still have sent its sons to Europe or the North, and the 
up-country would have been content with its fertile lands and invigorating 
hills. 



21 

Tte second ground of objection does not deny or diminish the impor- 
tance of the College, or the general advantages of higher education. It only 
affirms that the State is not the proper body for dispensing them. The 
advocates of this negative opinion divide themselves into two classes, one 
maintaining that Colleges should support themselves — the other that they 
should be supported by endowments under the control of private or ecclesi- 
astical corporations. The first was the doctrine of Adam Smith, who may 
be reckoned among the ablest opponents of the policy of public education in 
the higher branches of learning. He lays down the thesis, that the demand 
will infallibly create the supply — that in science, literature and the arts, as 
in the commodities which minister to the physical comfort and conveniences 
of man, what is wanted will be procured. The double operation of private 
interest, on the one hand to obtain, on the other to furnish, will present 
inducements enough to originate all the schools that may be needed to teach 
all the arts that may be desired. This ingenious reason er furgot that, in 
the matter of education, as Sir Wm. Hamilton justly remarks,* " demand 
and supply are necessarily coexistent and coextensive — that it is education 
which creates the want which education only can satisfy. Those again," 
says the same writer, '' who, conceding all this, contend that the creation 
and supply ot this demand should be abandoned by the State to private 
intelligence and philanthropy are contradicted both by reasoning and fact." 
The expensiveness of the machinery which is necessary to put in motion a- 
higher seminary of learning, renders it hopelessly impossible to make such 
institutions self-supporting bodies, and the attempt to do so would have no 
other effect than to degrade them into professional or scientific schools, in 
which knowledge is the end, and not the instrument. Hence there is not a 
College or University worthy of the name, either in Europe or America, 
that is capable of sustaining, much less of having founded, its various 
departments of instruction by the patronage it receives. Education has 
always lived on charity. Foundations and endowments, partly from indi- 
viduals, partly from the State, have always been its reliances to supply the 
apparatus with which the machinery is kept in motion. 

As to private corporations, it is certain that the degree of interest which 
is taken in learning for itself, will never be adequate to meet the exigencies 
of higher education. There must be some stronger principle at work, an 
impulse more general and pervading, in order to touch the chords of private 
liberality and awaken a responsive thrill. There may be extraordinary 
efforts of single men, but these spasmodic contributions will be too rare, 
besides that they may be hampered by unwise restrictions and limitations, 
to answer the ends of a College. The only principle which has vitality and 

* Discussions, &c., p. 537. 



22 

power enough to keep the stream of private charity steadily turned in the 
direction of education is the principle of religion. And hence the true and 
only question is, does education belong to the Church or State. Into the 
hands of one or the other, it must fall or perish. This, too, is the great 
practical question among us. The most formidable war against the College 
will be that waged on the principle of its existence. 

I respect the feeling out of which the jealousy of State institutions has 
grown. A godless education is worse than none ; and I rejoice that the 
sentiment is well-nigh universal in this country, that a system which ex- 
cludes the highest and most commanding, the eternal interests of man, must 
be radically defective, whether reference be had to the culture of the individ- 
ual, or to his prosperity and influence in life. Man is essentially a religiovxs 
being, and to make no provision for this noblest element of his nature, to 
ignore and preclude it from any distinct consideration, is to leave him but 
half-educated. The Ancients were accustomed to regard theology as the first 
philosophy, and there is not a people under the sun, whose religion has not 
been the chief inspiration of their literature. Take away the influence 
which this subject has exerted upon the human mind, destroy its contribu- 
tions to the cause of letters, the impulse it has given to the speculations of 
philosophy, and what will be left after these subtractions will be compara- 
tively small in quantity and feeble in life and spirit. "We must have reli- 
gion, if we would reach the highest forms of education. This is the 
atmosphere which must surround the mind and permeate all its activities, 
in order that its developement may be free, healthful and vigorous. Science 
languishes, letters pine, refinement is lost, wherever and whenever the 
genius pf religion is excluded. Experience has demonstrated that, in 
some form or other, it must enter into every College and pervade every 
department of instruction. No institution has been able to live without it. 
But what right, it is asked, has the State to introduce it ? What right, 
we might ask in return, has the State to exclude it ? The difficulty lies in 
confounding the dogmatic peculiarities of sects with the spirit of religion. 
The State as such knows nothing of sects, but to protect them, but it does 
not follow that the State must be necessarily godless ; and so a College 
knows nothing of denominations exce^^t as a featvire in the history of the 
human race, but it does not fallow that a College must be necessarily athe- 
istic or unchristian. What is wanted is the pervading influence of religion 
as a life ; the habitual sense of responsibility to God and of the true worth 
and destiny of the soul, which shall give tone to the character, and regulate 
all the pursuits of the place. The example, temper, and habitual deport- 
ment of the teachers, co-operating with the dogmatic instructions which 
have been received at the fireside and in the church, and coupled with the 
obligatory observance, except in cases of conscientious scruple, of the pecu- 



23 

liar duties of tbc Lord's day, will be found to do more in maintaining tbe 
power of religion than the constant recitation of the catechism, or the cease- 
less inculcation of sectarian peculiarities. The difficulty of introducing 
religion is, indeed, rather speculative than practical. When we propose to 
teach religion as a science, and undertake by precise boundaries and exact 
statutory provisions, to define what shall and what shall not be taught, when 
by written schemes we endeavour to avoid all the peculiarities of sect and 
opinion without sacrificing the essential interests of religion, the task is 
impossible. The residuum, after our nice distinctions, is zero. But why 
introduce religion as a science ? Let it come in the character of the Pro- 
fessors, let it come in the stated worship of the Sanctuary, and let it come 
in the vindication of those immortal records which constitute the basis of 
our fiiith. 

Leave creeds and confessions to the fireside and church, the home and 
the pulpit. Have godly teachers and you will have comparatively a godly 
College. But what security have we that a State College will pay any at- 
tention to the religious character of its teachers ? The security of 
public opinion, which, in proportion as the various religious denomina- 
tions do their duty in their own spheres, will become absolutely irresisti- 
ble. Let all the sects combine to support the State College, and they can 
soon create a sentiment which, with the terrible certainty of fate, shall 
tolerate nothing unholy or unclean in its walls. They can make it religious 
without being sectarian. The true power of the church over these institu- 
tions is not that of direct control, but of moral influence, arising from her 
direct work upon the hearts and consciences of all the members of the 
community. Is it alleged that experience presents us with mournful ex- 
amples of State institutions degenerating into hot-beds of atheism and im- 
piety ? It may be promptly replied that the same experience presents 
us with equally mournful examples of church institutions degenerating 
into hot-beds of the vilest heresy and infidelity. And what is more to the 
poi nt, a sound public opinion has never failed to bring these State institu- 
tions back to their proper moorings, while the church institutions have, not 
unfrequeutly, carried their sects with them and rendered reform impossible. 
In the ease of State institutions, the security for i-eligion lies in the public 
opinion of the whole coflimunity ; in the case of church institutions, in the 
public opinion of a single denomination, and as the smaller body can more 
easily become corrupt than a larger, as there is a constant play of antago- 
nisms which preserves the health in the one case, while theyare wanting in 
the other, it seems clear that a State College, upon the whole, and in the 
long run, must be safer than any sectarian institution. As long as the 
people preserve their respect for religion, the College can be kept free from 
dangrer- 



24 

The principle, too, on which the argument for church supen'ision is 
founded, proves too much. It is assumed that wherever a religious influence 
becomes a matter of primary importance, there the church has legitimate 
jurisdiction. "This," it has been well said,* ''puts an end to society itself, 
and makes the church the only power that can exist; since all that is 
necessary is for any officer or any power to be capable of moral effects, or 
influences, in order to put it under the dominion of the church. The 
moral influence of governors, judges, presidents, nay, even sheriffs, coroners^ 
or constables, is as real and may be far more extensive than that of school- 
masters. The moral influence of wealth, manners, taste, is immense ; that 
of domestic habits, nay, even personal habits, often decisive." The truth 
is, this species of argument would reduce every interest under the sun to 
the control of the church. It is just the principle on which the authority 
of the Pope over Kings and States has been assvimed and defended. The 
argument, moreover, is one which can be very easily retorted. If, because 
education has a religious element, it must fall within the jurisdiction of the 
church, a fortiori, because it has multiplied secular elements, it must fall 
within the jurisdiction of the State. The church is a distinct corporation — 
with distinct rights and authority. She has direct control over nothing 
that is not spiritual in its matter and connected with our relations to Jesus 
Christ. She is His kingdom, and her functions are limited to His work as 
the mediator of the covenant and the saviour of the lost ; and if education, 
in its secular aspects, is not a function of grace, but of nature, if it belongs 
to man, not as a christian, but simply as a man, then it no more falls with- 
in the jurisdiction of the church, than any other secular work. " The du- 
ties of the State are civil, not sacred : the duties of the chui'ch are sacred, 
not civil. To exclude the church from the control of general education, and 
to exempt it from the duty of providing the means thereof, it must be shown 
that education is of the nature of religious things, and that the duty of su- 
perintending it is, in its nature, spiritual. Is not a man bound to educate 
himself as an individual person ? Is not every family bound to educate 
each other, and the head of the family peculiarly bound to educate the 
members ? If so, are these obligations which arise out of our individual 
personality and out of our family relations, in any degree at all, or do they 
spring solely and chiefly, out of om- obligations as members of Christ ? Is 
a christian more bound, or is he chiefly bound, or is he exclusively bound 
— ^they are three degrees of the same proposition — to acquire and to im- 
part knowledge, which has nothing to do with religion, but much to do 

■^Southern Presbyterian Re^^ew, vol. 3, p. 6. The article from -wliicli this extract 
is taken was written by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, and is the most complete refutatioii 
of the manifold assumptions on which the theory of church education proceeds, that 
I have ever seen. It sets the question at rest. 



25 

with temporal success, and temporal usefulness ; all the positive sciences, 
for example ; simply or mainly as a christian, or because he is a christian ? 
Or is he bound chiefly, or at all to do so, from any considerations drawn 
from his individual position, or his relations to his family or his country ? 
These are considerations, and there are many more like them, that require 
to be deeply pondered before we arrive at the sweeping generalities which 
assume and assert that denominational education is the only safe and true 
conclusion of this * high argument.' "* 

Apart from the principle involved, I have other objections to sectarian 
education. I say sectarian education, for the church as catholic and one, 
in the present condition of things, is not visible and corporate. What she 
does can only be done through the agency of one or more of the various 
fragments into which she has been suffered to split. In the fii'st place, it is 
evident, from the feebleness of the sects, that these Colleges cannot be 
very largely endowed. In the next place, they are likely to be numerous. 
From these causes will result a strenuous competition for patronage ; and 
from this, two effects may be expected to follow. First, the depression of 
the standard of general education, so as to allure students to their halls 3 
and next, the preference of what is ostentatious and attractive in education 
to what is solid and substantial. It is true that there can be no lofty flight, 
as Bacon has suggested, "without some feathers of ostentation ;" but it is 
equally true that there can be no flight at all, where there are not bone, 
muscle and sinew to sustain the feathers. 

It is also a serious evil that the State should be habitually denounced as 
profane and infidel. To think and speak of it in that light is the sure way 
to make it so ; and yet, this is the uniform representation of the advocates 
of church education. They will not permit the State to touch the svibject, 
because its fingers are unclean. Can there be a more certain method to 
uproot the sentiments of patriotism, and to make us feel that the govern- 
ment of the country is an enormous evil to which we are to submit, not 
out of love, but for conscience sake ? Will not something like this be the 
inevitable effect of the declamation and invective which bigots and zealots 
feel authorized to vent against the Commonwealth that protects them, in 
order that they may succeed in their narrow schemes ? Instead of cling- 
ing around the State, as they would cling to the bosom of a beloved parent, 
and concentrating upon her the highest and holiest influences which they 
are capable of exerting ; instead of teaching their children to love her, as 
the ordinance of God for good, to bless her for her manifold benefits, and 
to obey her with even a religious veneration, they repel her to a cold and 
cheerless distance, and brand her with the stigma of Divine reprobation. 
The result must be bad. " The fanaticism which despises the State, and 

■^Southern Presbyterian Review, vol. 3, p. 3, Dr. Breckenridge's article. 



26 

tlie infidelity wliicli contemns the cliurch, are botli alike the product of 
ignorance and folly. God has established both the church and the State. 
It is as clearly our duty to be loyal and enlightened citizeuSj as to be 
faithful and earnest christians." 

I think, too, that the tendency of sectarian Colleges to perpetuate the 
strife of sects, to fiix whatever is heterogeneous in the elements of national 
character, and to alienate the citizens from each other, is a consideration 
not to be overlooked. There ought surely to be some common ground on 
which the members of the same State may meet together and feel that they 
are brothers — some common ground on which their children may mingle 
without confusion or discord, and bury every narrow and selfish interest in 
the sublime sentiment that they belong to the same family. Nothing is so 
powerful as a common education, and the thousand sweet associations which 
spring from it and cluster around it, to cherish the holy brotherhood of 
men. Those who have walked together in the same paths of science, and 
taken sweet counsel in the same halls of learning, who went arm in arm in 
that hallowed season of life when the foundations of all excellence are laid, 
who have wept with the same sorrows, or laughed with the same joys, who have 
been fired with the same ambition, lured with the same hopes, and grieved 
at the same disappointments, these are not the men, in after years, to stir 
up animosities, or foment intestine feuds. Their college life is a bond of 
union, which nothing can break • a Divine poetry of existence which nothing 
is allowed to j)rofane. Who can forget his college days, and his college com- 
panions, and even his college dreams ? Would you make any Commonwealth a 
unit, educate its sons together. This is the secret of the harmony which 
has so remarkably characterized our State. It was not the influence of a 
single mind, great as that mind was — it was no tame submission to authori- 
tative dictation. It was the community of thought, feeling and character, 
achieved by a common education within these walls. Here it was that heart 
was knit to heart, mind to mind, and that a common character was formed. 
All these advantages must be lost, if the sectarian scheme prevails. South 
Carolina will no longer be a unit, nor her citizens brothers. We shall 
have sect against sect, school against school, and college against college j 
and he knows but little of the past who has not observed that the most 
formidable dangers to any State are those which spring from divisions in 
its own bosom, and that these divisions are terrible in proportion to the 
degree in which the religious element enters into them. 

I shall say no more upon the College. I have spoken of its end, its 
organization and its defects; and have vindicated the policy upon which it 
was founded. What I have said I believe to be true, and I am sure that 
it is seasonable. And nothing would delight me more, as a man, a Chris- 
tian, and a patriot, than to sec all jealousies laid aside, all sectarian 



27 

sclicmes alDandoned, and the whole State, as one man, rally to its suppoi;t. 
It would find ample employment for all the funds which private liberality 
is pouring into the coffers of other institutions ; and when charity had done 
its utmost, and the government still more freely unlocked its treasury, we 
should have a splendid institution, beyond doubt, but one which was still 
not perfect. Education is a vast and complicated interest, and it reqiiires 
the legacies of ages and generations past, as well as the steady contributions 
of the living, to keep the stream from subsiding. Let it roll among us like 
a mighty river, whose ceaseless flow is maintained by the springs of charity 
and the great fountain of public munificence. Let us have a College which 
is worthy of the name — to which we can invite the scholars of Europe with 
an honest pride, and to which our children may repair from all our borders, 
as the States of Greece to their Olympia, or the chosen tribes to Mount Zion. 
How beautiful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! 

II. The next part of our system in the order of Legislation is the Free 
Schools. And here I am sorry to say that the law is not only inadequate^ 
but there is a very extraordinary discrepancy between the law and the 
practice, which increases the difficulty and has added to the inefficiency of 
the standing appropriation. It is clear from the face of it that the Act 
of 1811 was designed as the fii'st step towards the establishment of a system 
of Common Schools, that should bring the means of elementary education 
within the reach of every child in the State. It was not intended to be a 
provision ioY pcmpers. Throughout our statutes Free Schools mean Puhlic 
Schools, or schools which are open to every citizen. The first act in which 
I find the expression is that of the 8th of April, 1710, entitled an act for 
the founding and erecting of a Free School for the use of the inhabitants of 
South Carolina. This act created and incorporated a Board of Trustees for 
the purpose of taking charge of such funds as had already been contributed, 
or might afterwards be contributed for public instruction in the Province. 
In it the epithetyz-ee is synonymous, not •^iih.paupcr, hutpuhlic, or common. 
The same is the case in the act of the 7th June, 1712, entitled an act for 
the encouragement of learning. Although the School was a Free School, 
every pupil was required to pay for his tuition. But the meaning of the 
phrase is made still clearer by the extended act of the 12th December of 
the same year. There the School was manifestly open to all. Special in- 
ducements were held out to patronize and encourage it, and provisions made 
for educating a certain number free of expense. The act of 1811, which is 
the basis of our present system, is so clear and explicit as to the kind of 
Schools to be founded, that I am utterly unable to account for the partial 
and exclusive interpretation which has been put upon its words. The 
third section provides, "that every citizen of this Sta'e shall be entitled to 
send his or her child or children, ward or wards, to a 'y Free School in the 



28 

District wlievc lie or she may reside, free from any expense whatever on 
account of tuition ; and where more children shall apply for admission at 
any one School, than can be conveniently educated therein, a preference shall 
always be given to poor orphans and the children of indigent and necessitous 
parents." 

I have no doubt that if this act had been executed according to its true 
intent and meaning, and Public Schools had been established in every District 
of the State corresiwnding to the number of members in the House of Rep- 
resentatives,^the advantages would have been so conspicuous that the Legis- 
lature could not have stopped until the means of instruction had been 
afforded to every neighborhood, to every family, and to every child. The 
law was wise — it was strictly tentative and provisional, but its benevolent 
intention has been defeated by a singular misconception of its meaning. As 
a provisional law, it was defective in unity of plan. The Commissioners in 
each District were absolutely independent and irresponsible. There was no 
central power which could correct mistakes and which could infuse a com- 
mon spirit and a common life into the whole scheme. The consequence is 
that, after all our legislation and all our expenditures we have not even the 
elements in practical operation of a system of Public Schools. We have 
the whole work to begin anew. 

You will permit me to suggest a few reasons why we should begin it 
heartily and at once, and then to intimate the nature and extent of our 
incipient efforts. 

1. In the first place, it is the duty of the State to provide for the educa- 
tion of its citizens. Even Adam Smith, who, we have seen, was opposed to 
the direct interference of the government in higher, or liberal education, is 
constrained to admit that the education of the common people forms an 
exception to his principle. He makes it the care of the government upon 
the same general ground with the cultivation of a martial spirit. We 
should be as solicitous that our citizens should not be ignorant as that they 
should not be cowards. The whole passage is so striking that you will 
excuse me for quoting it in full. "But a coward, a man incapable either 
of defending or of revenging himself, evidently wants one of the most essen- 
tial parts of the character of a man. He is as much mutilated and deformed 
in his mind as another is in his body, who is either deprived of some of his 
most essential members, or has lost the use of them. He is evidently the more 
wretched and miserable of the two ; because happiness and misery, which 
reside altogether in the mind, must necessarily depend more upon the 
liealthful or unhealthful, the mutilated or entire state of the mind, than 
upon that of the body. Even though the martial spirit of the people were 
of no use towards the defence of the society, yet, to prevent that sort of 
menttd mutilation, deformity and wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily 



29 

involves in it, from spreading themselves througli tlie gi-eat body of the 
people, would still deserve the most serious attention of government; in the 
same manner as it would deserve its most serious attention to prevent a 
leprosy, or any other loathsome and offensive disease, from spreading itself 
among them ; though perhaps, no other public good might result from such 
attention besides the prevention of so great a public evil. 

"The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which, 
in a civilized society, seem so frequently to benumb the understandings of 
all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the proper use of the 
intellectual faculties of a man is, if possible, more contemptible than even 
a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed in a still more essential 
part of the character of human nature. Though the State was to derive no 
advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of the people, it would 
still deserve its attention that they should not be altogether uninstructed. 
The State, however, derives no inconsiderable advantage from their instruc- 
tion. The more they are instructed, the less liable they are to the delusions 
of enthusiasm and sxiperstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently 
occasion the most dreadful disorders. An instructed and intelligent 
people, besides, are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and 
stupid one. They feel themselves, each individually, more respectable, 
and more likely to obtain the respect of their lawful superiors, and they 
are, therefore, more disposed to respect those superiors. They are more 
disposed to examine, and more capable of seeing through, the interested 
complaints of faction and sedition ; and they are, upon that account, less 
apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures 
of government. In free countries, where the safety of government depends 
very much upon the favourable judgment which the people may form of 
its conduct, it must surely be of the highest importance that they should 
not be disposed to judge rashly or capriciously concerning it." 

" If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and 
intelligence in the labouring classes," says Say, "it must dispense it at the 
public charge. This object may be obtained by the establishment of pri- 
mary schools, of reading, writing and arithmetic. These are the groundwork 
of all knowledge, and are quite sufficient for the civilization of the lower classes. 
In fact, one cannot call a nation civilized, nor consequently possessed of the 
benefits of civilization, until the people at large be instructed in these three 
particulars : till then it will be but partially reclaimed from barbarism." 

I might multiply authorities to an indefinite extent, showing that it is the 
general opinion of political philosophers, that popular instruction is one of 
the most sacred duties of the Commonwealth. The opinion obviously rests 
upon two grounds — 'the importance of education in itself and in its relations 
to the State, and the impossibility of adequately providing for it without the 



30 

assistance of Legislature. The alternative is, either that the education of 
the people must be abandoned as hopeless, or the government must embark 
in the work. Surely, if this be really the state of the case. South Carolina 
cannot hesitate a moment as to which branch of the proposition she will 
choose. When it is remembered that education makes the citizen as well 
as the man — that it is precisely what fits a human being to be a living 
member of a Commonwealth, we cannot hesitate as to whether our people 
shall be cyphers or men. 

And that this is the alternative, is clear, both from the nature of the 
case, and from fact. Whoever considers what it is to provide an adequate 
system of instruction for all the children of a country, the amount of 
funds necessary to erect school-houses, to found libraries, to procure the 
needful apparatus, to pay teachers, and to keep the machinery, once set in 
motion, in steady and successful operation, will perceive the folly of en- 
trusting such a task to the disjointed efforts of individuals, or the conflict- 
ing efforts of religious denominations. In either case, there will be no 
unity of plan, no competency of means — what is done must be done par- 
tially, and because partially, must be done amiss. " All experience," says 
Sir William Hamilton, " demonstrates the necessity of State interference. 
No countries present a more remarkable contrast in this respect (in regard 
to popular education) than England and Germany. In the former the 
State has done nothing for the education of the people, and private benevo- 
lence more than has been attempted elsewhere ; in the latter, the Grovern- 
ment has done everything, and left to private benevolence almost nothing 
to effect. The English people are, however, the lowest, the German peo- 
ple the highest, in the scale of knowledge. All that Scotland enjoys of popu- 
lar education above the other kingdoms of the British Empire, she owes to 
the State ; and among the principalities of Germany, from Russia down to 
Hesse Cassel, education is uniformly found to prosper exactly in proportion 
to the extent of interference, and to the unremitted watchfulness of Go- 
vernment. * * * The experience of the last half century in Germany, 
has, indeed, completely set at rest the question. For thirty years no Ger- 
man has been found to maintain the doctrine of Smith. In their generous 
rivalry, the Governments of that country have practically shown what a 
benevolent and prudent policy could effect for the university as for the 
school ; and knowing what they have done, who is there now to maintain, 
that for education as for trade, the State can prevent evil, but cannot origi- 
nate good." 

There are those among us who admit that no complete system of jiopu- 
lar education can be instituted without the intervention of the State, and 
yet maintain that the true method of intervention is simply to supplement 
individual exertions ; that is, they would have those who are able to do so 



81 

educate their cliildren in schools sustained by themselves, and solicit the 
aid of the Legislature only for pauj^ers. It is obvious, in the first place, 
that in this there is no system at all ; the schools are detached and inde- 
pendent ; they have no common life, and the State knows nothing of the 
influences which may be exerted within them. Education is too complica- 
ted an interest, and touches the prosperity of the Commonwealth in too 
many points to be left, in reference to the most important class of its sub- 
jects, absolutely without responsibility to the Grovernment. The homoge- 
neousness of the j^opulation can only be sustained by a general system of 
public schools. In the next place, the scheme is invidious. It makes a 
reproachful distinction betwixt the children of the Commonwealth ; and 
in the last place, it must, from this very circumstance, be inefficient ; pa- 
rents will scorn a favour rather than permit their children to be stigmatized 
as the condition of receiving it. The true policy of the State is to recog- 
nize no distinction betwixt the rich and the poor ; to put them all upon the 
same footing ; to treat them simply as so many minds, whose capacities 
are to be unfolded, and whose energies are to be directed. The rich and 
the poor, in the school-house, as in the house of Grod, should meet together 
upon the ground of their common relations, and the consequences of this 
pi'omiscuous elementary training would soon be felt in harmonizing and 
smoothing all the unevenness, harshnesses and inequalities of social life. 

2. In the second place, the State should make some speedy provisions 
for popular education in consequence of the unusual demand which, in 
some form or other, is indicated as existing in every section of the country. 
There never was a greater cry for schools ; the people are beginning to ap- 
preciate their importance, and at no period within my recollection have such 
strenuous efforts been made to establish and support them. The extraor- 
dinary exertions of the various sects — exertions, too, which deserve all 
praise considered as attempts to satisfy an acknowledged public want — and 
the success which has attended them, are proofs that public opinion is ripe 
in South Carolina for the interference of the Legislature ; and if it should 
not speedily interfere, this great and mighty interest will pass completely 
out of its hands, and be beyond its regulation or control. It is a critical 
period with us in the history of education. The people are calling for 
schools and teachers ; and if the State will not listen to their cries, they 
will be justified in adopting the best expedients they can, and in acceding 
to the provisions which religious zeal proposes to their acceptance. Our 
people are not, as a body, in favour of sectarian education. They prefer a 
general and unexclusive system ; and if they adopt the narrower, it will be 
because their own Goverment has been inattentive to their interests. I 
sincerely hope that the Legislature may be duly sensible of the delicate 
posture of this subject. To my mind, it is clear as the noon-day sun, that 



32 

if any thing is to be done, it must be done at onee. Now or never is the 

al state of the problem. 

3. In the third phice, the State shoukl take the subject in hand, because 
this is the only way by which consistency and coherence can be secured in 
the different departments of instruction. Education is a connected work, 
and its various sub-divisions should be so arranged, that while each is a 
whole in itself, it should be, at the same time, a part of a still greater whole. 
The lower elementary education should, for example, be complete for those 
who aspire to nothing more ; it should likewise be naturally introductoiy 
to a higher culture. It should be a perfect whole for the one class, and a 
properly adjusted part for the other. So also, the higher elementary educa- 
tion, that of the grammar school, should be complete for those who are not 
looking to a liberal education, and yet, in relation to others, subsidiary to 
the College or the scientific school. This unity in the midst of variety can- 
not be secured without a common centre of impulse and of action. There 
must be one presiding spirit, one head, one heart. Education will become 
a disjointed and fragmentary process, if it is left to individuals, to private 
corporations and religious sects. Each will have his tongue and his psalm, 
and we shall have as many crotchets and experiments as there are controll- 
ing bodies. The competition excited will be a competition, not for effi- 
ciency in instruction, bu.t for numbers ; each will estimate success by the 
hosts that can be paraded at its annual festivals, or the pomp and pretension 
of a theatrical pageant, played off under the name of an examination. 
This is not the language of reproach; it is a result which, from the principles 
of human nature, will be inevitably necessitated, by the condition in which 
the schools shall find themselves placed. 

Let me add, in this last place, that Public Education is recommended by 
considerations of economy. Absolutely, it is the cheapest of all systems. 
It saves the enormous expense of boarding schools, or the still heavier ex- 
pense of domestic tutors, one of which must be encountered where it is left 
to private enterprise to supply the means of education. If the amount 
which is annually expended in South Carolina upon the instruction of that 
portion of her children who are looking to a liberal education, could be 
collected into one sum, we should be amazed at the prodigality of means in 
comparison with the poverty of the result. The same sum judiciously dis- 
tributed would go very far towards supplying every neighborhood with a 
competent teacher. From the want of system there is no security that, 
with all this lavish expenditure, efficient instructors shall be procured. 
Those who employ the teachers are not always competent to judge ot their 
qualifications ; and the consequence is that time and money are both not 
unfrequently squandered in learning what has afterwards to be unlearned. 
The dangers, too, of sending children from home at an early age, the evil 



33 

of exemption from parental influence and discipline, are not to be lightly 
hazarded. The State should see to it that the family is preserved in its 
integrity, and enabled to exert all its mighty power in shaping the character 
of the future citizens of the Commonwealth. Comparatively, Public Edu- 
cation is cheap ; as general intelligence contributes to general virtue, and 
general virtue diminishes expenditui-es for crime. It is cheap, as it 
devolopes the resources of the country and increases the mass of its wealth. 
It is not labour, but intelligence that creates new values, and Public Edu- 
cation is an outlay of capital that returns to the coffers of the State with an 
enormous interest. Not a dollar, therefore, that is judiciously appropriated 
to the instruction of the people, will ever be lost. The five talents will gain 
other five, and the two talents other two, while to neglect this great de- 
partment of duty is to wrap the talent in a napkin and bury it in the bowels 
of the earth. 

2. But, after all, the practical question is the one of real difficulty. 
"What shall the State do ? This is a point of great delicacy, and demands 
consummate wisdom. Nothing should be done abruptly and violently, no 
measures should be adopted that are not likely to recommend themselves, 
no attempts made to force an acquiesence into any provisions, however 
salutary they may have proved elsewhere, which are not founded in the 
habits and predilections of the people, or obviously indispensable to elevate 
and improve them. The public mind should be prepared for every great 
movement, before it is begun. Popular enthusiasm should, if possible, be 
awakened by addresses and disputations — which, like pioneers, prepare the 
way for the law, by making rough places plain and the crooked straight. 
Above all we should guard against attempting to make our system too per- 
fect at the outset. The words of Cousin are as applicable to us now, as 
they were to Prance at the time he wrote them. " God grant that we may 
be wise enough to see that any law on primary instruction passed now must 
be a provisional, and not a definitive law ; that it must of necessity be re- 
constructed at the end of ten years, and that the only thing now is to supply 
the most urgent wants, and to give legal sanction to some incontestible 
points ;" Festina lente contains a caution which it becomes States as well as 
individuals to respect. 

What we first need is a collection of the facts from which the data of a 
proper system may be drawn. We must know the number of children in 
the State, of the ages at which children are usually sent to School, the kind 
and degree of education demanded, the relative distances of the residence of 
parents, the points at which school houses may be most conveniently 
erected, the number of buildings required, the number of teachers, and the 
salaries which different localities make^^necessary to a competent support. 
Facts of this sort must constitute the groundwork. In possession of these, 



34 

we may then proceed to compare different systems, adopting from among 
them that which seems to be best adapted to our own circumstances, or 
originating a new one, if all should prove unsatisfoctory. All, therefore, 
that in my judgment, the Legislature should undertake at present, is to 
acquire this preliminary information, including the accumulation of facts, 
the comparison of different Common School systems, and the digest of a 
plan suited to the wants of our own people. This can be done by the ap- 
pointment of a minister of public instruction, who shall be regarded as an 
officer of the government, compensated by a large salary, and who shall give 
himself unreservedly to this great interest. Let him be required to traverse 
the State, to inspect the condition of every neighborhood, and from personal 
observation and authentic testimony let him become acquainted with the 
number, the extent and the circumstances of the children. Let him be 
prepared to say where school houses can be most conveniently erected, the 
distances at which they should be removed from each other, the kind of 
teacher needed in each neighborhood, and let him indicate what sections 
of the State are unprepared for Schools in consequence of the dispersion 
of their inhabitants. Let him be able to give some probable estimate of 
the expense incident to the successful operation of an adequate scheme. 
In the next place, it should be his duty to master the existing systems, 
whether in this country or Eiu'ope, and to lay before the Legislature a suc- 
cint account of their fundamental provisions. Let him propose the scheme 
which he thinks ought to be adopted here, and let his report be referred to 
an able and learned Commission, charged with the final preparation of such 
a scheme as we may be ready to enact into law. 

I shall not disguise from your Excellency that upon many points connected 
with the details of any and every scheme, my own opinion has long ago 
been definitely settled. The extent or degree of elementary education — 
the best mode of securing competent teachers — the principles which should 
regulate their salaries — the introduction of religion into the schools — these 
and many other similar topics I have investigated to my own satisfaction. 
But in the present condition of the whole subject, it would be obviously 
premature to express the opinions of any individual. The Minister of Pub- 
lic Instruction should have the whole subject before him, and whatever 
discussions may take place upon details should be consequent upon, and 
not prior to his report. ,A11, therefore, that I would now press upon your 
Excellency is to have Public Instruction erected into a department of the 
government. That is the first, and an indispensable step, and until that 
is done, there never can be a plan, adequate, consistent, successful. I have 
only to add here, that this is substantially the recommendation which I had 
the honor to make in concert with the Bishop of G eorgia, some fourteen or 



35 

fifteen years ago, and time and observation have only strengthened my 
convictions of the wisdom and necessity of the measure. 

8. The third and last part of our system is the military schools. What 
I have to suggest in regard to them, is that they be made to supply a want 
which is constantly increasing, as the country advances in trade and the 
arts. It is a great evil that there should be nothing intermediate between 
the Grammar School and the College, and that all who wish to acquire 
nothing more than the principles of physical science on account of their 
application to various branches of industry, should be compelled to purchase 
this privilege by bearing what to them is the heavy burden of a liberal 
education. They do not want Latin, Greek and Philosophy, and it is hard 
that they cannot be permitted to get a little chemistry, a little engineering, 
or a little natural philosophy, without going through Homer and Virgil, 
Aristotle and Locke. " Two great evils," I use the words of Cousin, who is 
deploring a similar state of things in France, " two great evils are the con- 
sequence. In general these boys, who know that they are not destined to 
any very distinguished career, go through their studies in a negligent man- 
ner ; they never get beyond mediocrity ; when, at about eighteen, they go 
back to the habits and the business of their fathers, as there is nothing in 
their ordinary life to recall or to keep up their studies, a few years oblite- 
rate every trace of the little classical learning they acquired. On the other 
hand, these young men often contract tastes and acquaintances at College 
which render it difficult, nay, almost impossible, for them to return to the 
humble way of life, to which they were born; hence a race of men, restless, 
discontented with their position, with others. and with themselves; enemies 
of a state of society in which they feel themselves out of place, and with 
some acquirements, some real or imagined talent, and unbridled ambition, 
ready to rush into any career of servility or revolt. * * * Our Colleges 
ought, without doubt, to remain open to all who can pay the expense of 
them : but we ought by no means to force the lower classes into them ; yet 
this is the inevitable effect of having no intermediate establishments between 
the primary schools and the Colleges." The remedy, as I have already 
shown, is not to change the constitution of the College, but to employ the 
elements which we confessedly have, and which are essentially suited to the 
purpose. 

I shall trespass upon the patience of your Excellency no longer. In all 
that I have said I have had an eye to the prosperity and glory of my native 
State. Small in territory and feeble in numbers, the only means by which 
she can maintain her dignity and importance is by the patronage of letters. 
A mere speck, compared with several other States in the Union, her reliance 
for the.protection of her rights, and her full and equal influence in Federal 
legislation, must be upon the genius of her statesmen and the character of 



36 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



iiiiiiiiiiniiiiiii 

022 115 572 5 



her people. Let her give herself to the rearing of a noble race of men, and 
she will make up in moral power what she wants in votes. Public educa- 
tion is the cheap expedient for uniting us among ourselves, and rendering 
us terrible abroad. Mind after all must be felt, and I am anxious to see 
my beloved Carolina preeminently distinguished for the learning, eloquence 
and patriotism of her sons. Let us endeavour to make her in general intel- 
ligence what she is in dignity and independence of character, the brightest 
star in the American constellation. God grant that the time may soon 
come when not an individual born within our borders shall be permitted to 
reach maturity without having mastered the elements of knowledge. 

I am, with considerations of the highest respect, 
J. H. THORNWELL. 



JjIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

022 115 572 I 




